Provisional results from the European Parliament election in the Netherlands can be published by the media tonight at 10pm, the country's interior affairs minister has announced.

The publication will come despite a warning from the European Commission that publication would violate EU law.

Right-wing website GeenStijl and election survey provider Peil.nl have conducted a high-profile campaign for the Netherlands to reject the instructions from the Commission, saying that Dutch election law requires that votes be counted and announced directly after an election. The Commission had warned the Dutch government that publication before all other member states have voted at 11pm on Sunday 25 May would violate EU law.

However Ronald Plasterk, the Dutch minister for interior affairs, said yesterday (21 May) that publication by media outlets is not in conflict with the law. This means that media outlets can go ahead and publish provisional results after the Dutch polling stations close 9pm this evening. GeenStijl expects to come out with the first results 10pm tonight.

This is the first day of voting in the four-day European Parliament elections taking place across the EU. Only the Netherlands and the UK are voting today. The UK is not expected to publish exit polls tonight.

Dutch election law, which was revised in 1989, says that votes must be counted directly after the polling station closes and the results declared. In the last European Parliament elections in 2009, the Dutch government published its provisional results after voting on 4 June, three days before most EU member states voted. The European Commission this year has called on the Dutch government to comply with the European rules and to delay an announcement of the results until after the last polling station had closed elsewhere.

The GeenStijl website said the current rules are “democracy hate” and “censorship”. Volunteers could apply through a special website and indicate in which polling station they would attend the counting and announcement of the votes, which is publicly accessible. They reported to have enough volunteers - around 2,000 - to give a representative outcome of the results.

Vivane Reding, the European commissioner for justice, fundamental rights and citizenship, has asked Plasterk for a clarification. He said GeenStijl is acting in line with the law, because the official results will be announced on 30 May by the Kiesraad, an election supervisory body. “The Dutch election law does not have any restrictions when it comes to writing down or filming what the chairman of the polling station announces,” he said.

An official exit poll will be published by main broadcaster NOS this evening at 9pm, based on questioning 40,000 voters.